In the data card view, EPDM shows the tab with the active configuration by default. Same in the BOM view, the active configuration is the standard selection.

For a standalone application I would like to also pre-select the name of the active configuration in my UI and use that configuration in further processing if the user doesn't change the value. I can obviously use IEDMFile5.GetConfigurations for a list of the configurations, but there doesn't seem to be something like IEDMFile5.GetActiveConfiguration.

One possible solution would be to load the file using the Document Manager API, but that's a lot of overhead.

Is there a simple way via the EPDM API to determine the active configuration of a part or assembly in the vault?

There is not a direct method via the EPDM API but there is a way of acheiving it, unfortunately though it requries the hook to be one of the Card types. For example the EdmCmdType.EdmCmd_CardInput provides the name of the active configuration via the mbsStrData1 member. You can then use this as a paramter to the GetConfigurations Method.

As i say unfortunately i do not think this will help you with a stand alone application but thought it was worth sharing this information.

I had noticed that too, which is why I was hoping I had overlooked the call to get this info. I assume that EPDM stores this info somewhere and doesn't actually call the document manager every time it needs to know the active configuration.

Unfortunately that info is only passed as info in a hook, so that doesn't really help in standalone situations - as you pointed out.